Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 43

my Dear

Two Men Outside my Door

Victoria’s POV

The leather of the driver’s seat was completely worn down, pressing awkwardly into my lower back as I lay there with the chair fully reclined.

I kept my left arm thrown over my forehead, blocking out the dim, orange glow of the distant parking lot lamppost.

The air inside the cabin of my Honda Civic was already growing stale and cold.

I had been living out of the back seat for two full days now, and the reality of my situation was finally starting to settle into my bones.

My transmission was completely shot, the car was a stationary metal tent stuck in the absolute furthest corner of the campus library lot, and my bank account was too depleted to save me.

By all accounts, I was supposed to be happy tonight. I should have been ecstatic. Caleb was finally single.

He had spent the last week actively trying to bridge the distance between us, buying me ice cream, taking me out to lunch after a grueling lecture day, walking with me. through the park, and looking at me with that old, familiar warmth.

I was a single step away from finally obtaining the exact thing I had dreamed about since I was seven.

But staring up at the dark fabric of the car ceiling, my chest felt entirely empty.

I let out a long, ragged sigh, reaching over to the passenger seat to grope around until my fingers brushed against my phone.

I illuminated the screen, the sudden brightness causing my eyes to wince, and navigated my way to the contacts app.

I scrolled down past the academic advisors and my group project partners until I reached the letter E.

Elijah Arrogant Carter.

That was how I had saved his number weeks ago, back when I thought he was ” nothing more than an insufferable, conceited athlete who happened to need my help with a public relations problem.

A small, involuntary smile touched the corners of my lips as I stared at the name on the screen.

But the smile quickly faded as a rush of vivid memories suddenly invaded my mind.

I found myself thinking about that night we spent arguing over our fake relationship at

1/5

Two Men Outside my Door

四

the locker room, the intense, unreadable look in his eyes when he stood too close to me in public, and especially that one night when he had turned up at my apartment completely drunk.

His words from that evening still echoed clearly in my ears, heavy with a raw, unfiltered vulnerability that he never allowed anyone else to see.

I closed my eyes tightly, trying to force the memory out of my head.

I tried to replace it with Caleb’s bright, handsome face. I tried to think about the way Caleb had tucked my hair behind my ear at the park just an hour ago. But it was entirely useless.

That one powerful, messy moment with Elijah seemed to possess a strange, suffocating strength, completely overriding every single childhood memory I had spent years archiving.

I groaned out loud, running both hands down my face in sheer frustration.

“Get a grip, Victoria,” I muttered to the empty car. “He’s just a partner in a business arrangement. That’s it.”

To distract myself from the tightening knot in my chest, I decided to dial the one person who could always ground me.

I hadn’t heard from my mother in over a week, and the isolation of the dark parking lot was starting to make me feel incredibly lonely. I hit the call button and held the phone up to my face.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Victoria, honey! Oh, it is so wonderful to hear your voice.”

“Hey, Mom,” I said, forcing my tone to sound bright and cheerful despite the

circumstances.

On the tiny preview screen of the video feed, my mother’s eyes instantly narrowed as she studied my face.

The background behind me was completely dark, broken only by the faint interior light of the car dashboard.

“Sweetheart, are you out in your car right now? Why is it so dark? Are you driving somewhere this late?”

A nervous feeling twisted in my stomach, but I quickly brushed it off, offering a smooth, well–practiced lie.

“Oh, no, I’m just parked outside my building, Mom. I just got back from running some late–night errands for my project. I realized I hadn’t called you in a while, and I knew if I went up to my room and started studying, I’d completely forget.”

2/5

Outsade my Doof

My mother feigned a deep, dramatic hurt, holding a hand over her heart.

“Oh, I see how it is. I’m just an afterthought now, Tori? Your poor mother has to wait for errand day to get a phone call?”

“Mom, no! You know that’s not what I meant,” I protested, a genuine laugh bubbling up in my throat for the first time all evening.

She laughed warmly, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I know, honey. I’m just pulling your legs. You work so hard up there, I just worry about you.”

“I’m fine, really. How is Dad doing?” I asked, leaning my head back against the headrest.

“He’s resting right now,” my mother said, her expression softening into something tired and affectionate.

“He had an extremely long day at the warehouse. His back was flaring up again, so I made him take some medicine and lay down early.”

Hearing those words made a sharp, painful ache bloom directly in the center of my chest.

My parents had worked themselves to the bone for as long as I could remember, sacrificing their own physical health and comfort just to ensure that my sister and I could afford to go to a university like Crowswell.

They carried a mountain of financial stress on their shoulders, yet they never complained to us.

A fierce, desperate determination gripped me. I needed to finish this semester. I needed to graduate at the top of my class, secure a high–paying engineering job, and completely retire them.

I wanted to buy them a house where my dad never had to lift another heavy crate for the rest of his life.

“Honey? Are you still there?” my mother’s voice called out, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I blinked rapidly, clearing my throat to dislodge the tight lump that had formed there.

“Yes, Mom. I’m here. Uh… actually, I should probably head inside now. I have a lot of reading to catch up on before my morning lab. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Give Dad a kiss for me.”

“I will, sweetheart. Study hard, and please get some sleep. We love you so much.” She blew a kiss toward the camera, her face radiating pure, unconditional love.

“Love you too, Mom. Goodnight.”

The line went dead, and the screen snapped back to my contacts list.

3.5

Two Men Outside my Door

The silence that returned to the car was absolute, heavy, and suffocating.

I sat there in the dim space, and without warning, a single, hot tear spilled over my eyelashes, tracking a slow, wet path down my cheek. Then another followed.

I wiped them away aggressively with the sleeve of my jacket, but the dampness kept coming.

I

I curled up on my side, pulling my heavy winter jacket tightly around my shoulders as the chill of the night began to seep through the glass.

Exhaustion eventually took over, dragging my mind down into a heavy, restless sleep.

Then, I heard it.

My eyes snapped open.

The sound was close–too close. For a second, I didn’t know where I was, my brain entirely fogged by sleep.

But then the harsh reality of the backseat rushed back, and the sound came again. It was the distinct, violent scraping of metal against metal right outside my ear.

Someone was hacking at my door handle.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify